Dems okayed for mining committee

The membership of a committee tasked with reviewing Wisconsin’s existing mining laws has been finalized, and state Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller has gotten his way on the composition of the panel. Miller had tapped Democrats Bob Jauch, Jon Erpenbach and Tim Carpenter to serve with four Republicans. “We can’t get any more evenly divided unless somebody wasn’t there,” Miller said , referring the state Senate’s 17-16 partisan split. “If we’re going to bipartisan work on a mining bill, we ought to have equal members.” While Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald initially indicated he wanted just two Democrats — Jauch and Jim Holperin, he agreed Thursday to Millers picks “in the efforts of moving forward with our shared goal of creating jobs in Northern Wisconsin.”